Personal lift or patient lift devices have been known and used in the past for the purpose of assisting with the mobility of otherwise immobilized patients. An attendant may help physically disabled patients who may have suffered a traumatic injury, stroke or one form of illness or another, and who are unable to move about. However, often such patients may be too heavy to lift or the attendant may not have enough strength to help the patient move. This can be especially true for disabled patients who have reduced mobility but otherwise normal bodily functions. Getting up, going to the bathroom and having a bath, for example, can be difficult for such patients.
Personal lift devices that have been used in the past typically include a strap or chain hanging down from a motor assembly, which in turn may be suspended from a movable stand or from a rail carriage riding along an overhead track. An overhead track can be organized to extend from over a bed and into, for example, an adjoining bathroom area, to permit the patient to be raised, suspended, and then moved along the track to a position where they can be lowered into the bathtub for the purposes of a bath, or onto a toilet.
Typically such patient lift devices are provided with an electronic lift motor and with an inefficient gear train system. The latter is believed desired, because, in the event of a power failure, the inefficiency of the gear train means there is no quick release or lowering of a patient in a downward direction. In other words, the motor and power train are self-braking. While providing such gearing inefficiencies does act as a safety brake, it also increases the cost, size, and weight of the lift apparatus, since a larger electric motor is required to both lift and lower against the gear train. As well, in the event of a malfunction due to electrical failure of the motor, the patient can be stuck suspended in mid air without any practical way of being released and lowered. Therefore, what is desired is a lighter, simpler, and more efficient device, which can be readily utilized for patient lifting and which preferably includes a safety release to prevent patients from being stranded in a suspended position.